Stage 4 Glioma and Avastin

Hi...

My husband has had the surgery to remove as much as possible and then had the radiation; chemo and is now on Avastin....does anyone out there have any info on this drug and if it really works? and for how long? We are at the one year mark and I am amazed but fearful.  He isn't really getting any better. Judith

Hi Juditha, my husband had a DIPG and had radiation first with good success. We watched and waited after that until it started growing and he tried Antineoplastons which failed. He was then put on Avastin, which did not work and carried a lot of bad side effects. He used Avastin for 6 months or something when his tumor kept growing and we chose to stop treatment. Let me know if I can help with any other questions. So sorry for what you are facing right now. I traveled the road. Mary

Avastin works by inhibiting angiogenesis, ie the formation of blood vessels. Without forming its own blood vessels, a tumor can't grow very large. Avastin works in about 40% of glioblastoma patients.

Does anyone know what group of GBM patients Avastin works best with?  For example, mesenchymal, proneural, neural, etc.  From what I've learned about GBM, patients respond well to treatments that seem to target the specific type of group that the patients are categorized in.  I read that the mesenchymal group responds well to the dendritic cell vaccine.  The proneural group doesn't respond well to Temodar.  That's about all I've learned so far.  I think much more personal treatment needs to take place regarding GBM.  This is not a one size fits all cancer.

Thanks for the info...I am trying to figure out if this drug will continue to work, or is time-limited like the other treatments we have tried??  Seems to lengthen life a little bit, but, where does one go from here?

i would start on antabuse and copper--search the medical literature

peter

Robin, it was my understanding that Avastin works by suppressing VEGF; therefore it works best on a patient whose tumor expresses VEGF-- vascular endothelial growth factor. My sister's subtype is mesenchymal and it worked on her; however, I do not know if all mesenchymal tumors share this particular expression.

On Dec 09, 2012 3:38 AM juditha wrote:

Thanks for the info...I am trying to figure out if this drug will continue to work, or is time-limited like the other treatments we have tried??  Seems to lengthen life a little bit, but, where does one go from here?

My husband just started Avastin and it shrunk his tumor in half.  Amazing...

I have read that its effects are limited and it stops working after awhile.  I have no idea how long it works before the tumor stops responding.  I too am fearful and would like to know the answer.

Something we need to keep in mind though, is that everyone is different.  Everyone responds differently...  So never give up hope...

 

Sarah